Bought a print I love, DH is worried it's racist

[NC4T]

Saw it on IG and loved it. Purchased it for the laundry room corridor, but it's arrived and DH is a little worried it might be racist. I can't see how. To me, it's a mum finding a few minutes of calm in the chaos and I love her babies little sleeping face.

We are white Jewish, for cultural context.

What do you think?

I was a bit ehhh at first but seeing the other images on the website made it clearer.

I like it.

Get a white woman print too, hang them up next to each other?

Why not buy a couple more, including women from different races - then it will be clear that the artist paints all sorts of women equally (assuming she does!), and you'll have lots of prints that you love for your laundry room?

Ummmm...

It definitely draws on media imagery of poor women in developing countries.

In general, I view naked women in art with a jaundiced eye, especially the sector of mass market ornaments and prints that focuses on depicting black and asian women naked.

This is the great thing about art!!
Many many different interpretations on the same picture.

Who is the artist ?

It's open to debate when its on its own, but in the context of a collection of 2 or more, it's much less controversial looking.

I hate it and maybe your DH does too, but can’t verbalise quite why.

The blanket’s colour and patterns reminds me of the beautiful drawings Barbara Tyrrell did of Xhosa women.

Not racist. Nice analysis from Napqueen but I analysed it to be a typical busy mum of a newborn who probably just got puked or shit on and couldn’t be arsed finding new clothes or moving her sleeping baby to put said clothes on .

Whattheactualfuckmate, sorry, the white gaze is certainly a thing in art. As is the male gaze. Generally people from a particular privilege depicting other people bodies is a loaded subject.

She made me think of my mate who sometimes does the housework naked if it's only women she knows well in the house.

Not because she's poor but because she doesn't give a stuff

I think it's racist to think that this picture is racist

Why is she naked?

Laundry day, duh.

Now we can see the one with the white woman struggling to get to grips with wrapping her baby on to her back, it seems to me like it's poking fun (in a way) at white women (and perhaps indulging in stereotypes about black women of African descent). The black woman has got this chucking her baby on her back thing sussed and looks totally chilled, while the white woman is completely frazzled and can't manage it at all.

In the context of the rest of the artists work (which I didnt know of or see until midway through this thread) its a nude mother (am I ok to assume shes the babys mother), babywearing and doing something mundane. As per the rest of the prints in thay collection. On its own and out of ignorance of the artists style, I still see what I initially saw.

Looking at the website linked, have to say I am not a fan of the artwork. Its all just a little bit forced. "Look at our hairy pits", "look at our saggy bits", "look at our hairy fannies". I see enough of that in the mirror. I dont need it on a wall.

I view naked women in art with a jaundiced eye, especially the sector of mass market ornaments and prints that focuses on depicting black and asian women naked

Hmm. I'm still forming my opinion on this, but do you think your DH meant something closer to fetishisation of black women in art, rather than racism?

She's naked because her baby threw up on her and she thought she'd bing them in with the wash and have half an hour with her book... not because she only owns one set of clothes.

I think it's contrasting the exoticised, naked African mother with the modern reality of black women in the U.K. they have their roots but they're educated (book) and live a modern life (washing machine) and are not looking at the viewer because who cares about their gaze. She's at home, she's comfortable.

I love it and it's in no way racist - it's a mum taking 5 mins to read a book while her washing is on.

If you click on the link posted there a numerous pics of white women with babies strapped to them doing all manner of housework/normal stuff.

Some people should stop taking offence when really there is none to be taken. It's just a mum taking 5.

Nap, I agree..... most of the rest of her prints I find a bit forced. I love the moment of stillness in this one.

I think this is what the artist wants.

Us to decide whether snap judgments and stereotypes are even necessary in this day and age.

They are illustrating how our own prejudices, experiences and impressions will decide whether this woman is a poor woman from an impoverished country finally being added by modern technology, to a fairly poor women born in USA/UK and has little money to buy clothes or whether she's just naked because it's just her and baby in the house.

Personally I see her as a tired Mum who came back from dropping her eldest off at school and she's taken her clothes off so she doesn't have to do another wash for a few days and baby has finally slept after a night of crying and whilst she waits she reads the Autobiography of one of her favourite feminists she follows on Twitter.

I'm black. I love it. Have similar pics (un-naked) on display. Without trying to sound too cliche, there's something raw and real about it

My mom (nudist who did yoga) thought the human body was beautiful and should be celebrated and flaunted. All shapes and sizes (& colors). That's why she would like OP's print very much.

BetteDavis.....erm, no. He's a wonderful man but I guarantee he does not know about the fetishisation of BAME bodies in art.

I thought the washing machine was sort of deliberately incongruous with the typical traditional african baby carrier and the ''modern'' labour saving device.

I cannot believe the artist went to all that trouble, all those brush strokes to paint a washing machine.

Oh, and I didn't mean that African women aren't educated and don't have washing machines in my post, just that this western lady (?) does.

Of course it's not racist, and I agree with: If you click on the link posted there a numerous pics of white women with babies strapped to them doing all manner of housework/normal stuff

But I doubt they evoke so many different emotions/responses.